Dr Liz Gordon – Crossing lines

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The media is alive this week with the fall-out from Donald Trump’s visit to Europe. The snubs, the diplomatic faux-pas, the treatment of Theresa May, and NATO, and everyone (except Vlad-the-Lad). So much news to report, so many issues.  Oh yes, and then the Great Reversal, where Trump said he said ‘would’ but meant ‘wouldn’t’. His performance at that press conference was odd; while he lies all the time, this time you could hear the lie in his voice.

All of this is conveyed to us in a breathless and exasperated voice by the media. Am I the only person who found the whole thing quite entertaining? I must admit I have had a lot of fun listening to all the shenanigans this week.  When Trump stirs things up, it reveals deeper truths about him but also about the institutions he is mocking.

Let’s start with Theresa May and the infamous Sun interview. Theatrically, I would put this as an Oscar Wilde moment – a comedy of manners, or rather mannerisms.  Trump told the Sun that Boris Johnson would make a great Prime Minister and criticised Theresa May on Brexit. Next morning, he accused the Sun of ‘fake news’, then apologised to Theresa May (who in turn blamed it on the media – fake news).  The fact that he was recorded saying every word was completely ignored (but I am sure not forgotten) by both parties.

It is not surprising that the media started reaching for their copies of George Orwell’s 1984 (though actually I have always preferred Animal Farm as a story of when truth becomes lies and vice versa). Doublethink is among us. Anyway, it is no stretch to see the dialogue written into a Wilde play and enacted in the chintz drawing room of a fine house (Chequers, perhaps?).

And there is the mystery of why he grabbed May’s hand when descending a few steps to the press conference.  Were his aging knees playing up? Did he think her aging knees were playing up? Or was this a show of comity for the press?  Perhaps all of the above?

If the May affair was a Wilde-ish comedy of errors, the session with the Queen comes straight out of Shakespeare. Trump behaved throughout as if the whole production – Windsor castle, an aging monarch, the furry hats of the Beefeaters, tea and the private audience had all been created just for him. He was not the guest, but the owner of the event.  He showed this in particular by his various breaches of protocol.

Perhaps the most shocking was when he stood poised to inspect the furry brigade and forced the Queen to walk around him, which is not in the meet-the-Queen rulebook.  The thing that was funny was that he did not even notice. I’m not a monarchist but you have to give the old girl marks for aplomb. She shuffled calmly around the Trump statue and indicated to him where he should go.  The Queen might have said:

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Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack:
I swear ’tis better to be much abused
Than but to know’t a little.

Or perhaps she might have had Trump clapped up in the Tower (I wonder whether anyone would have tried to rescue him).  Rudolf Hess was the last state prisoner to be held in the Tower, in 1941, but the infamous Kray twins were held there for a few days in the 1950s. The impoundment of Donald would have been a great tourist attraction for London this summer, though.

But this is all fantasy on my part – she did neither of these things.  On the British side, it was all courtesy and good manners no matter what Trump did. While I abhor the lack of challenge to his behaviour, I must admit the diplomatic niceties were revealed as a useful buffer to insulate the nation-state from his vindictive approach.  With the establishment keeping calm and carrying on, Trump’s rants were foregrounded and highlighted, and contrasted with the civilised veneer of the UK, and found wanting.

And yet there was plenty in all of this to warm Trump’s supporters. A refusal to bow to conventions is seen by these people as a strength, not a weakness.  Thus far, then, points to Trump’s domestic agenda, havoc in the UK and a big tick for diplomatic processes. Then came Helsinki.

The Putin affair was pure farce.  As such, it did not disappoint. Putin had the upper hand all the way through.  He kept Trump waiting for an hour, spoke first (and at length) and bent Trump completely to his will.  Putin the Puppeteer had Trump saying that the Russians were right and his own security services were wrong about election interference.

This, of course, was a bridge too far. Thus, Trump later had to front up and said that he meant the opposite of what he said – a double negative, as he noted.  Not, of course, until he judged that even his closest supporters had turned against him. Now the media are asking more seriously whether Vlad has got some dirt on Donald. This is all grist for my funny bone, too.

Should I apologise for my enjoyment of the spectacle of the DT Circus as it wended its way through a Europe so unprepared for such an onslaught? My sister (in London) says that it’s OK for me, I haven’t had Trump’s enormous helicopter cast a shadow over my home. But you got to see the Trump baby, I replied.

 

 

Dr Liz Gordon began her working life as a university lecturer at Massey and the Canterbury universities. She spent six years as an Alliance MP, before starting her own research company, Pukeko Research.  Her work is in the fields of justice, law, education and sociology (poverty and inequality). She is the president of Pillars, a charity that works for the children of prisoners, a prison volunteer, and is on the board of several other organisations. Her mission is to see New Zealand freed from the shackles of neo-liberalism before she dies (hopefully well before!).

13 COMMENTS

  1. The really amusing part about Trump is that everybody is missing what he is actually doing (which may be difficult even for himself to know). We can all scream “false news”, “the Russians did it” etc etc, in fact that is exactly what I think he wants. It is probably why he has not shut down the farcical FBI probe in the Democratic server, it is a great distraction.

    He has played the “Left” well, he managed to talk disarmament, nuclear limitation and better relations with Putin….meanwhile the Washington Post NYT nexus choruses this as “treachery”, and liberal Leftists condemn it as a bad thing, and who even side with neo-Cons who want war.

    So if you have been watching carefully Trump has pretty much been consistent with his election promises to his supporters, and the chances are that he will be re-elected as a result. I have no doubt that that is NOT a good thing, but show me what anybody else has offered?

    We are fooling ourselves if we think throwing big tantrums aka anti -Trump rallies, or withering editorial condemnations, or columns like this one will stop him, let alone prevent re-election. Time to cut the crap and get on with a really viable, saleable option. We have two years.

  2. Trump is the end result of politics and mass entertainment mixed together. He’s like WWF wrestling; pure fakery and we know it. But nevertheless enjoyable. Its fun, its for the kiddie in us, wanting to be outraged but from a safe place. Think of Dr Smith from Lost in Space in the White House.

    When someone like Putin comes out looking statesmanlike and a world leader in comparison to ArchClown Trump, this is a ratings game winner.

    Enjoy it. After 2020, Trump will be replaced by a serious adult and playtime will be over.

    • Not unless he carks it or gets impeached. he will be re-elected if he can stand. As Liz says he is fun, and no Liz you are not alone in your amusement. We are all enjoying it greatly. Especially watching the deep state and the democrats that do no longer represent the common people, self destruct in their desperation to denigrate him by any means possible.
      D J S

  3. Guyon Espiner, Radionz Tuesday, had the opinion that Trump meeting Putin ‘undermined the world order.” The presidents of the USA and RUSSIA, meeting, ‘undermined the world order!’
    What world order could he be referring to ?
    Consider.
    The FBI has NOT been allowed to forensically examine the primary source data held in the DNC/Clinton servers-as Trump proclaimed from Helsinki. Nor have they had made available to them ‘personal devices’ used by the central players in the DNC CLINTON/PODESTA conspiracy, as exposed by the congressional Hearings.
    Rather, the FBI has had to contend with ‘representation’ of those parts thought to relate, by an independent intelligence company, CROWDSTRIKE. A company staffed through the revolving doors with very interesting and interested parties to the unfolding ‘Russian Collusion’ psyop. A company participant in the constructed ‘Steele Dossier.’ A dossier involving Sergie Skripal in Salisbury. Everywhere shadowed by Bill BROWDER (also a guest on Morning-report) and Hermitage Capital, as pointed to by president Putin at Helsinki; ‘donating’ 400 million tax free Russian monies into the Clinton Foundation ‘pay-to-play’ front. Foundations’ exposed by Charles ORTEL and Harmon WILFRED as collectively, the biggest international Fraud of all time.

    In fact, the man named Imran AWAN, at centre of HR.Clintons ‘private server’ pay-to-play cyber network, just struck a deal with DoJ and walked’.
    Consider that. The most powerful law enforcement agency in the United States of America, has been unable to forensically access KNOWN primary source data pertaining the crimes committed by DNC insiders exposed in the wikileaks CLINTON/PODESTA emails leaked by the murdered Seth RICH; and the man at its ‘data-centre’ cannot be charged for any ‘non-violent’ offences pertaining.
    Who has the power.
    The evidence within those servers..the metadata, is understood by the alternative information streams, to incriminate every single official voice so far calling for the removal of Trump. This goes to Brennan, Comey, Clapper, Hayden, McCain, Obama, the Clintons, McCabe, Strzok, Rosenstein, Horowitz, Rich, Nuland, Meuller..The Bushs’. Tennant…..this is the ‘World order’ threatened by Trump and Putin, who well know the ground they are walking on.
    This is an internecine war. Going on right now, in DC. Played out in Helsinki.
    The power of the Military/Intelligence/complex Eisenhower warned us of, is under threat.
    The ‘world order’ of secret societies JFK warned us of, is under threat.

    And we know how that went for JFK and his brother.

    My two cents; this can only mean a breakthrough to arrests at the highest end of the US elites,
    or another egregious false flag in the coming period.

    • So true. Trumps failure to date has been to charge anybody over the Dem server. In the “Art of the Deal” you concentrate on the main event, you clean up later when that enables another “deal”. Arrests and charges at election time?

    • This homework is well worth a far wider readership. Thanks Remo and Nick.
      It is quite conceivable that the intensity of the anti Trump campaign by the DNC and the spy agencies, or some individuals within them , is all about keeping all this under wraps. If Hillary had won no-one would ever have known anything about it, so they could do what they liked to see she did. As long as they succeeded in securing her victory. The disaster of her loosing meant that everything possible must be done to get rid of Trump before the whole foetid mess is exposed. So every step to hide the truth drags them deeper and deeper into the mire.
      “O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!”
      Trump might be right to let Mueller have his head.
      D J S

  4. Reno, this Guyon Espiner….Who? I’ve been hearing an echo from a previous decade, dated dull and pathetic. Singing yesterday’s songs, one hit wonders. I turned down the volume….

  5. Wisely, Nick.
    Yet he spoke to BROWDER on the morning of the Skripal IIO. Who set that up? Why was BROWDER called by radionz to inform and influence Kiwi opinion? Or, did Browders people contact radionz?

    Further to my above :

    “The Crowdstrike analyst who ran the forensics on the DNC servers worked for Mueller at the FBI and was personally promoted by Robert Mueller,” reports Paul Sperry— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) July 18, 2018
    Hillary’s campaign counsel, Marc Elias [Perkins Coie] hired Crowdstrike to write the public report blaming Russia for hacking the DNC in June of 2016 which of course is the same month Marc Elias hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to write the dossier.”

  6. Great exchange Remo/nick, so right in my opinion. Talkback ZB has a good operator some Mornings (12am on) who lets callers actually speak. There are a lot of people awake at that time and some are up with the play as you, call it. I just fume when Marcus Lush etc won’t let someone talk if he doesn’t agree. I believe he listens to CNN etc, much as several other hosts do.

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